Organizations such as on-line retailers, Internet service providers, search providers, financial institutions, universities, and other computing-intensive organizations often conduct computer operations from large scale computing facilities. Such computing facilities house and accommodate a large amount of server, network, and computer equipment to process, store, and exchange data as needed to carry out an organization's operations. Typically, a computer room of a computing facility includes many server racks. Each server rack, in turn, includes many servers and associated computer equipment.
Because a computing facility may contain a large number of servers, a large amount of electrical power may be required to operate the facility. In addition, the electrical power is distributed to a large number of locations spread throughout the computer room (e.g., many racks spaced from one another, and many servers in each rack). Usually, a facility receives a power feed at a relatively high voltage. This power feed is stepped down to a lower voltage (e.g., 110V). A network of cabling, bus bars, power connectors, and power distribution units, is used to deliver the power at the lower voltage to numerous specific components in the facility.
Because a computing facility may contain a large number of servers, a large amount of infrastructure may be required to support computing capacity of the data center. In particular, a large amount of cabling infrastructure equipment, electrical distribution infrastructure equipment, network communication infrastructure equipment, air cooling infrastructure equipment, etc. may be required to support computing operations by servers in a data center at any given time. Some instances of infrastructure are usually installed at initial construction of a data center, based at least in part upon design assumptions regarding the support requirements of server racks (also referred to herein as “rack computer systems”) that are expected to be installed in the data center.
Some servers include a number of components that are mounted in an interior of the server. The components, which can include printed circuit boards (for example, a motherboard) and mass storage devices, can support one or more components that generate waste heat, referred to herein as “heat-producing components”. For example, a motherboard can support a central processing unit, and mass storage devices can include hard disk drives which include motors and electronic components that generate heat. Some or all of this heat must be removed from the components to maintain continuous operation of a server. The amount of heat generated by the central processing units, hard disk drives, etc. within a data room may be substantial. Heat may be removed from the heat-producing components via an airflow flowing through a server.
The various embodiments described herein are susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms. Specific embodiments are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the disclosure to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.